Reading Strategies Develop Through Practice

Calculated and methodical reading strategies will improve your child's reading, but today, with the misguided (or is it?) Common core agenda for reading, I suspect parents aren't sure what their children should be reading.

Having taught literature for more than 20 years, having more than 80 college hours of literature and writing, and having taught reading to almost 4,000 students, I have a few insights I'd like to share.

Common Core Reading Levels are very Misleading.

Here's the problem. On the right are the current lexile levels and the new "standards" set by the Common Core, which shows the progressive stretching to higher reading levels that your children are supposed to achieve.

On a superficial level, a few more points here and there don't seem to be too radical.

But before I continue, let's set a parameter for this conversation.

I am going to talk ONLY about the average child.

Why?

Because exceptions (that is, those children one and two standard deviations above the mean and those one and two standard deviations below the mean) don't PROVE the rule. Most children like most adults are average.

SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE PUSH AND PUSH AND PUSH AND PUSH an average child to meet the "standard"?

Current Lexile Band

K–1 N/A

2–3 450L–725L

4–5 645L–845L

6–8 860L–1010L

9-10 960L–1115L

11–12 1070L–1220L

New Common Core Stretch Lexile Band

K-1 N/A

2-3 420L-820L

4-5 740L–1010L

6-8 925L–1185L

9-10 1050L–1335L

11-12 1185L–1385L

Here are just a couple of examples:

the activity isn't fun anymore

the child feels stressed and pressured

the parent develops a gnawing worry deep inside her gut that she's failing her child

the parent loses confidence

the child feels like a failure

the child may grow to resent a world that demands so much

Trust me; during the 25 years I taught, I saw many parents break down in tears about their children's lack of progress. Parents care, and setting "standards" like this is not one of the reading strategies that will solve the reading problems in the world.

However, creating fear and panic and insecurity in parents does make it easier to control them. I'm not saying that is the goal of Common Core. Perhaps, it's just one of its perks.

Literature Lexile Levels

A Lexile level is a measure of how difficult a book may be to read based on the sentence length and frequency of words on the page. It reflects nothing about a child's ability to interpret or comprehend what she has read in any way other than a basic level. Here is a list of modern classics and their lexile numbers.

All of them can be downloaded to an e-reader, but I personally love and own Kindles.

1200 - Sons and Lovers (I'm not recommending it for children. Just letting you know its lexile level. )

1270 - The Scarlet Letter

1300 Lexile books

1320 - Aristotle's Poetics

(It was pretty slim pickins here, but this book as are all the Greek classics are mentally challenging.)

1400 Lexile books

1420 - The Scarlet Letter (Yes, the same book, but probably a different passage was measured.)

Good reading strategies develop from using study guides and progressively challenging books.

Should a 4th grader read The Sound and the Fury?

Is The Catcher in the Rye too low level for an 11th grader?

Should a 2nd grader read the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath?

Parents, Use These Guidelines Instead

If you are a homeschooling parent, I think it's important to be aware of the Common Core "standards" in your book selections. A good offense is a good defense. I say this because I don't think that our right to homeschooling is sacrosanct.

If your children are still in the public schools, I think you should be aware of the books being chosen for your children in order to reach these higher levels of the Common Core "standards."

In the meantime, follow these reading strategies to improve your child's reading.

Respect Reading First

Here's a biggie. When a person is reading, it looks like she is doing nothing, so almost everyone feels it's okay to interrupt that person.

One of the reading strategies that all parents must adopt is to respect reading time. For crying out loud, let a kid finish a paragraph or a chapter before making her get up to wash the dishes or put away her clothes.